Hi!
Our approach to the problem has been to leverage the `kind: junction`
plugin and writing custom buildstream source plugins to parse each of
the formats and translate them to Buildstream elements, essentially
generating a Buildsteam project from it, leveraging the existing
manifest structure. In our case the elements are mainly import ones,
but no reason they couldn't generate buildable elements.
[snip]
Something like this approach might provide the functionality you are
after within the existing Buildstream framework?
board.bst
```
kind: junction
sources:
- kind: device
supported_arches:
- x86_64 # Most devices before 2024
- aarch64
kernel: boards/microsoft-surface/linux-surface.bst
extra_packages:
- boards/microsoft-surface/webcam-firmware.bst
- boards/microsoft-surface/extra-power-profiles.bst
- boards/microsoft-surface/detatchable-keyboard-daemon.bst
- [...]
append_cmdline: >-
intel.iommu=force
qcom.iommu=enable
[...]
```
Yeah that's an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of generating
junctions on the fly before, in a source plugin.
I think the main downside of using junctions for your use-case is the
requirement to depend on elements in the parent project (e.g. the
extra_packages and kernel elements in the example), which would need
some weird parent junction in the subproject. So a more tightly
coupled `generator` plugin element type might be helpful here.
Hmm right that's the limitation. You can kinda work around it, and
inject dependencies into the junction. You also probably need to inject
project options, and also probably the entirety of project config so you
have appropriate cflags, ldflags, strip rules, etc.
So, more realistically, it'd look something like this:
```
# boards/microsoft-surface/board.bst
kind: junction
sources:
- kind: local
path: project-conf/ # Contains project.conf (symlink'd out) and all
yaml imports
- kind: device
supported_arches:
- x86_64 # Most devices before 2024
- aarch64
append_cmdline: >-
intel.iommu=force
qcom.iommu=enable
config:
options:
arch: "%{arch}"
whatever-other-options: "%{whatever-other-options}"
[snip]
override:
# Dependencies with everything needed to build an image
build-env.bst: boards/common/build-env.bst
# Board-specific stuff
kernel.bst: boards/microsoft-surface/linux-surface.bst
extra-packages.bst: boards/microsoft-surface/extra-packages.bst
```
```
# boards/microsoft-surface/extra-packages.bst
kind: stack
depends:
- boards/microsoft-surface/webcam-firmware.bst
- boards/microsoft-surface/extra-power-profiles.bst
- boards/microsoft-surface/detatchable-keyboard-daemon.bst
- [...]
```
Best,
Adrian
